Wesley Corpus

Strange! if they fail in so many prime points of Christian duty, and this not only habitually and presumptuously, but even to the denying their use and necessity. You praise them for trampling under foot ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life: And yet you make them a close, reserved, insincere, deceitful people. “How you will explain those things, I know not.” (Remarks, pp. 20, 21.) By nakedly declaring each thing as it is. They are, I believe, the most self-inconsistent people now under the sun: And I describe them just as I find them; neither better nor worse, but leaving the good and bad together. Upon this ground I can very easily justify the saying many good things of them, as well as bad. For instance: I am still persuaded that they (many of them) love God; although many others of them ignorantly “plead against the keeping,” not “most,” but some, “of his commandments.” I believe “they have a sincere desire to serve God:” And yet, in several instances, some of them, I think, despise that manner of serving him which I know God hath ordained. I believe some of them are much holier than any people I had known in August, 1740: Yet sure I am that others among them fail, not indeed in the “prime points of Christian duty,” (for these are faith, and the love of God and man,) but in several points of no small importance. Not that they herein sin presumptuously, neither; for they are fully, though erroneously, persuaded in their own minds. From the same persuasion they act, when they, in some sense, deny the use or necessity of those ordinances. How far that persuasion will justify or excuse them, I leave to Him who knoweth their hearts. Lastly. I believe they trample under foot, in a good degree, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life:” And yet many of them use reserve, yea, guile. Therefore, my soul mourns for them in secret places. 10. “But I must observe,” you say, “that you fall not only into inconsistencies, but into direct contradictions.